Stephanie is a Master's student who failed to crack investment banking as an undergraduate student, despite it being her passionate aspiration.
When she joined us, she said she was keen to explore sales & trading, private banking, or asset management. We recommended that she focus on private banking as her sociable personality would be very well suited to the demand of the role, especially since Stephanie isn't very technical. Also this was a smart strategic move considering that the headcount of private banking roles in Hong Kong is much higher than asset management roles in bulge bracket banks.
We also encouraged her to complete some of the basic programming courses that we offer, including VBA and Python that she proactively continued to learn in order to boost her competitive edge. Another key weakness that we addressed was that Stephanie did not have any resource materials, like the latest interview questions, and how to formulate impactful answers.
Stephanie ended up cracking both Barclays and HSBC. The reason why she cleared Barclays S&T role was owing to her being a quick study and a proactive self-learner given how she trained herself up on programming knowledge as well. Besides, she also conducted some of her own investment planning, so we guided her to draft interview answers on her trading methodology over the past few years.
Stephanie managed to turn around her initial defeat into a story of multiple victories with such strategic choices guiding her career strategy.
Reach out to us if you'd like to know how you can calibrate application strategies to land 2025 Investment Bank and Banking Internship or Graduate Jobs.
Want to know what interview questions & materials Stephanie used to land her Barclays offer? Check info below 👇
[The IB Career Coaching 2024/2025 enrolment is OPEN]
Each year IBankCoaching runs the career coaching program for undergraduate and postgraduate students like you to get into Investment Banking, Sales & Trading, Asset Management/ Private Banking and Research.
In the 10 years we have helped 2000+ graduates to secure 3500+ offers across Hong Kong, London and Singapore.
If you are interested to know more, you can register for a free demo and get career advice for 2025 applications via: www.ibankcoaching.com
Comments